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V
"Red Rain"
Written by Scott Rosenbaum and Gregg Hurwitz
Directed by Brian Spicer
Original air date: January 4, 2011 |
Erica seeks the
answer to the mystery of the red skies.
Read the detailed episode recap at
IMDB
Didja Notice?
At the very opening of the episode, the designs in the bridge
railing resemble the letter "V". Also notice that at
00:48 in the episode, we see more clearly that moisture (rain?)
on the pillar of the railing makes the V appear to be dripping,
a callback to the dripping spray-paint of the original logo of
V80.

What is the significance of Erica's opening dream sequence?
Certainly the red rain and its effect on Tyler foreshadow events
later in this episode, but what of other seeming symbolisms?
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Why does
everyone except
Erica and Tyler
remain
unconscious? Is
it just because
it is Erica's
dream and,
therefore,
Erica-centric?
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At 1:14 on the
Blu-ray, notice
that, before she
regains
consciousness,
Erica's left
hand is in a
position of
dialing a cell
phone--who was
she calling?
Tyler?
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Why is Tyler's jacket
next to Erica instead of with him?
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Is there a
telepathic
element to
Erica's vision
since she dreams
of red rain
affecting her
son and later
red rain
actually does
fall and she
also learns that
the phosphorus
of the rain may
have a
connection to
her pregnancy
with her son
years ago?
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At 2:40 in the episode, the television in the FBI office tells
us it has been 4 days since the coming of the red skies at the
end of "Red Sky".
Marcus tells Anna that the captains of the 29 ships were caught
off-guard by her command to release the red sky. "29" is the
number of ships that originally came to hover over major cities
of Earth in "Pilot". What of the
additional ships that arrived over Earth in the episode previous
to this one, "Red Sky"? I guess those
captains were not caught off-guard by the command since they had
just arrived and were expecting to receive some kind of order
from their queen.
Why do the news reports not mention the additional ships now
hovering over Earth? (We learn much later in
"Devil in a Blue Dress"
that the additional ships are cloaked and invisible to both
sight and Earth technology.)
We get a glimpse of Ryan's half-Visitor baby floating in a tank
of liquid at about 4:53 in the episode.

During Anna's confrontation with Ryan, we learn that his child
is a female.
On Prime Focus, Chad Decker tells us it has been two
months since the arrival of the Visitors in
"Pilot".
At 11:50 on the Blu-ray, Anna meets with the captains of the 29
ships, but we only see 20 of them as she walks into the room.
Interestingly, they all appear to be male. Notice that the one
who is seen whispering something to another as she walks in is
the one she decides to kill as an example just a minute later.
At 13:05 on the Blu-ray, an effect of blood spattering on the
camera lens is seen as Anna kills one of the ship captains with the
barbed end of her reptilian tail.
It seems that we only see red blood during Anna's killing of the
hapless ship captain. It could be the blood of the cloned human
skin he's wearing but, surely, some Visitor blood must have spattered out of
the body. Do the V's also have red blood (unlike the green blood
of the Visitors in V80)?
Anna's "unmasking" of the ship
captain here is similar to
Juliet Parrish's unmasking of Supreme
Commander John in the
V80
episode
"Unmasked". |
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ed Rain" |
"Unmasked" |
At 15:04 on the Blu-ray, the Visitor guard at the Peace
Ambassadors Center has writing on the back
of his uniform that is the same as seen in earlier episodes,
saying OVER CENTER.
At 15:10 on the Blu-ray, one of the protestors' signs says
"Better dead than red", a reference to both the current red
skies situation and the old anti-communist phrase popularized in
the United States during the Cold War. The phrase as used here
may also be a slight nod to the red uniforms of the Visitors on
the original V
series of
the 1980s.
There is V writing on the screen next to the picture of Dr.
Ellis Watts at 18:15 in episode. Many of the characters are too
blurry to make out and the ones that are legible don't seem to
spell anything, just a random jumble of letters (mostly J, S, D,
F).
As Anna makes her announcement about the red rain, we see her
image projected underneath the motherships in various cities.
The cities are not indentified, but appear to be Rome, Italy and
Beijing, China. London, England also appears on a television
screen at World News Television.
Answering a question I posed all the way back in the study of
"Pilot", the motherships seem to project
a live image of Anna speaking that is not only
automatically translated into the language native to each city,
but, also, alters her lip movements to appear to be
speaking the native language as well.
It seems that I've not previously noted the name of the church
over which Father Travis and Father Jack preside. Here, we see
that it is St. Joseph's Church. Though there is no real world
church in New York City by that name, there is a Church of St.
Joseph there!
Drs. Ellis Watts and Sidney Miller work at New York State
University. Again, this is a fictional university, though there
is a university system called State University of New York.
When Erica and Ryan first bump into Sidney at the university,
Erica removes the ear buds from his ears
so he can hear them, laying the two buds
over his shoulders. But, immediately after,
at 23:02 in the episode, the wired buds have disappeared from
his person!
The scene at 23:51 in the
episode gives away the fact that
the production shot "New York
State University" at the
Vancouver Art Center, where
V
is filmed in Vancouver, Canada. |
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New York
State University |
Vancouver
Art Center |
Sidney reveals that the mass grave he found in New Mexico was at
least 50 years old by carbon dating. Since a V skeleton was
found in it among the human remains, the V's have been on Earth
for at least that long (since 1959).
Tyler and Lisa are in what I guess is her private quarters on
the mothership when they make love. During this scene, through
her enormous picture window, what appear to be a number of
lighted vessels can be seen flying around in the vast
atrium of the ship.
Erica tells her team that she had preeclampsia when she was
pregnant with her son. Preeclampsia is a real condition, also
known as toxemia, that can affect pregnant women.
After visiting the six surviving members of her soldier brood,
Anna shuts off the medical displays above each one's bed. Did
this turn off the systems keeping them alive, thus killing them?
Her dialog and reaction seem to hint so, but it's not entirely
clear.
Introduced at the very end of the episode, Anna's mother is
portrayed by Jane Badler, the original Diana of
V80. Her red dress may be
a nod
to the original red uniforms of the Visitors as well.